“Making the world safer”?

Donald Trump plays into that bizarre American obsession with 'safety'. You paint America as a dangerous place where before even catching a train you have to be persuaded that it is a safe thing to do. You then demand a president who will make America safe as well as 'great' again.

Which means what? What would it look like for America to be 'great' again? Or 'safe' again? We don't get answers – just the usual perversity when it comes to asserting that more accessibility to more guns will magically make everyone safer.

Well, Americans will have to do their own business in the face of its Faustian pact with democracy in November. But, this impacts on the UK, too. Before leaving for a break I did an interview with BBC Radio 5Live in the wake of the murder by IS crazies of an elderly priest in France. Not exactly heroic, these criminals, are they? I mean, choose your targets.

The line of questioning put to me was that churches in England will now have to increase their security. What advice would I now be giving to my churches? I think my response must have been very disappointing. Increase vigilance and learn to look differently at what is going on around us, but don't go mad, start erecting fences or putting sentries on our churches. As if.

Isn't this what terrorists want us to do – be terrorised?

But, the main reason for rejecting some vast increase in security of buildings is that, as I think I put it, you can't legislate for total security. Furthermore, no one has the resources of money, time or people to provide anything remotely approximating total security. In the end, total safety is not something anyone can secure. Not even Donald Trump.

Our churches should open their doors and welcome people in. Yes, as happens already, someone should keep aware of who is there and who might be lurking around outside – especially if they are carrying knives and have their face covered. Yes, anything suspicious should be noted and, if necessary, the police alerted. That is common sense.

But, the first casualty of the current horrors should be the lie of total safety. History is littered with demagogues who promised safety and security along with renewed greatness. Their names are known to us. While understandable that in times of great fear and uncertainty people look for security and the promise of simple certainty, we should beware of the disillusionment and destructiveness that can follow when the empty and unachievable promises are seen for what they really are: a fantasy.

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6 Responses to ““Making the world safer”?”

The more we have to lose the more attention we have to give to “safety”. I can think of a few old farmhouses here in Worcestershire that have been bought up and then turned into fortresses with warning notices threatening dire consequences if you dare do something as threatening as dropping by for a cup of tea. I guess they are expressions of some kind of secular paradise. For churches to follow that road would mean that we no longer have much to say about the true Christ Way to life.
On those who murder the weak and vulnerable in “soft” targets like churches it seems to me that what organisations like Daesh have learned to do is to offer a plausible narrative to the embittered, the angry, the excluded etc that is frighteningly empowering. The murder of an old man becomes an act of sacred violence. The murderer becomes a martyr either through being killed by the security forces or by imprisonment in an infidel gaol. I recognise that the government will do all it can to prevent radicalisation but it will not be an easy job to offer a narrative that competes effectively with that one.
Such narratives are not limited to Islamic extremism. I noted that when Jo Cox was murdered tweets from the far right were saying such things as, “Do not let his (that is the murderer’s) sacrifice be in vain.” The same appeal to murder as sacred violence. The same call to imitation.

“There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out all fear.” Fear can cripple, and fear can be conquered. I found this TED about dealing with fear to be incredibly rational and inspiring, Colonel Chris Hadfield, Commander International Space Station, (ground control to Major Tom), I commend it to readers of this blog. My conclusion from this TED is that living in fear may be, for some, a matter of choice. Understanding the roots of the fear, and figuring out what to do, is the beginning of freedom from the fear that is in the way. Hadfield is clearly very in tune with his identity, which I think is the basis of the love of self, which itself is needed before one can love anyone else.